The most commonly used type of crimping apparatus comprises a press having a press frame, a press bed or platen, and a reciprocable ram which is movable towards and away from the press platen. Fixed crimping tooling is mounted on the press platen and movable crimping tooling is secured to the ram so that if an uncrimped terminal is placed on the fixed tooling and the wire is positioned in the terminal, the terminal will be crimped onto the wire when the ram moves towards the platen to its shut height position, that is, to the lower-most position of the stroke. Usually, a terminal applicator is used which has an applicator frame and an applicator ram. The applicator frame is supported on the press platen and the fixed tooling is mounted on the applicator frame rather than directly on the press platen. Also, the movable tooling is mounted on the applicator ram and the applicator ram is coupled to the press ram. Applicators of this type usually are provided with a self-contained terminal feeding mechanism for feeding terminals in strip form to the fixed crimping tooling. It is also common to provide an adjusting means on the applicator ram for adjustably moving the movable tooling on the ram in the directions of reciprocation so that the shut height position of the tooling can be adjusted for a particular terminal size and wire size combination.
In order for a crimped connection between a particular terminal and wire to perform satisfactorily, it is necessary that the "crimp height" of the crimped connection be closely controlled. The crimp height is the overall height of the crimped connection, usually between the base of the terminal ferrule and the top of the crimped portion. The crimp height is specified as a nominal crimp height, plus or minus a tolerance; for example, the specification for a particular terminal and a particular wire might require a crimp height of 0.060 inches .+-. 0.002 inches (1.52 mm .+-. 0.051 mm). A crimped connection having a crimp height of 0.057 inches (1.45 mm) or 0.063 inches (1.60 mm) would not satisfy the specification and would not be regarded as a satisfactory crimped connection. The crimping operation thus requires a relatively high degree of exactitude to satisfy the current industry standards and presently available adjusting systems on crimping machines are sometimes incapable of doing so. Terminal applicators of the type briefly described above, if properly adjusted and calibrated and if they are placed in a properly adjusted and maintained press, are capable of producing crimped connections within the standard tolerances of .+-.0.002 inches (0.051 mm) of a nominal crimp height. However, if the applicator is placed in a press which is not properly adjusted or if the applicator itself has not been recently inspected, adjusted, and calibrated, out-of-tolerance crimp connections will frequently be produced and the quality of the crimped connections produced in the particular applicator-press combination will suffer.
Another problem which is being faced to an increasing extent by manufacturers of electrical terminals has resulted from the fact that some industries are demanding tighter or closer tolerances in their crimp connections than the .+-.0.002 inches (0.051 mm) noted above. In an increasing number of instances, the users of crimped electrical connections are demanding a tolerance range of only 0.001 inch and existing crimping machines are usually incapable of achieving this high degree of exactitude in the terminals crimped.
The present invention is directed to the achievement of an improved crimping machine having an adjusting system which permits the achievement of crimped connections which are consistently within a very narrow tolerance range and which will satisfy the most exacting requirements of the industry.